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- Jan 22, 2017
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Hi folks, I'm working on a hybrid beer - that mixes normal beer wort, with rice that's been inoculated with a koji starter. While the yeast (normal beer yeast) ferments the wort, the koji converts sugars and proteins in the rice to more fermentables / yeast food. It's an open fermentation (the koji needs oxygen to create sugar from the rice), with a closed secondary fermentation. Here's the recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/463381/koji-activated-rice-ale
(If you're reading the recipe substitute my koji rice where you see flaked rice - I needed a placeholder to estimate the color and alcohol %.)
So, that's all fine and dandy - I just bottled my first test batch, and a few things are blowing my tiny mind:
https://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/resources/refractometer-calculator/
..tells me 8.04%, which is far enough way from my expectations that I'm assuming I broke the calculator, that I vastly underestimated how much sugar the koji would produce, or that the koji went to town on all the unfermentables in the wort.
Can anyone out there throw some context around the ABV? Because my wort had whole rice grains in it, I was unable to get an accurate OG - so I need to make the calc based on the current state of the beer.
Thanks everyone!
-lloyd
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/463381/koji-activated-rice-ale
(If you're reading the recipe substitute my koji rice where you see flaked rice - I needed a placeholder to estimate the color and alcohol %.)
So, that's all fine and dandy - I just bottled my first test batch, and a few things are blowing my tiny mind:
- Despite using no coloring grains, the beer is a rich amber, and extremely clear. The taste has a round, fruity middle, sandwiched between beer-like flavors. The flavor was expected, but not the color.
- The final gravity is 0.996 (what?!) with a brix reading of 4.75%
https://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/resources/refractometer-calculator/
..tells me 8.04%, which is far enough way from my expectations that I'm assuming I broke the calculator, that I vastly underestimated how much sugar the koji would produce, or that the koji went to town on all the unfermentables in the wort.
Can anyone out there throw some context around the ABV? Because my wort had whole rice grains in it, I was unable to get an accurate OG - so I need to make the calc based on the current state of the beer.
Thanks everyone!
-lloyd